


Loss Ficlet: Shed

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (Ficlets) [24]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: Claire decides that it's time to buy a house.





	Loss Ficlet: Shed

##  **Loss (Modern AU)  
****Shed**

**April 2018**

We became accidental homeowners just six weeks before our wedding.

The Chief of Orthopedic Surgery was moving to Paris and wanted to get rid of his beautiful terraced villa. It was a quiet tan thing, unassuming from the outside at the end of a sleepy grove of flowering trees and surrounded by gardens. Upon learning the news, I ran to Jamie’s office in the rain. Clad in scrubs covered in god-knows-what and my trench coat suspended over my head, I had rehearsed an entire sales pitch.

By the time I arrived –– sopping wet, water-logged, pink, and panting –– I was breathless.  The last time I had shown up unannounced and wearing a trench coat ( _and literally nothing else save lace_ ), he had made love to me on his desk until my brain fogged and my knees went wobbly.

I breezed past his assistant, a very pert and annoyed-looking Laoghaire, and pushed into his office.  Jamie was sitting at his desk with his feet up, a pen caught between his teeth. He slipped off his glasses and dropped his pen. ( _The glasses were new and hardly ever made an appearance at home. They had come up by necessity shortly after Christmas when I found him squinting at the newspaper one Sunday morning. In the beginning I teased him about his age and failing eyesight. But the first time I saw him in the tortoiseshell frames at the optometrist I permanently shut my mouth.)_

Between the glasses and the loosened knot of the tie at his throat were almost enough to throw me off of my purpose.   _Almost_.

Jamie did not bother to look surprised or to greet me.  Instead he laughed, smirking as he said, “This is no’ the trench coat fantasy of my dreams.”

“Glad to hear it.” I offered my own smirk in response, meeting his banter without a moment’s hesitation.

“I can rewrite the fantasy. Like a choose yer own adventure book, Claire.”  Warming at the implication, I dropped my sodden coat over one of the two chairs in front of his desk. Perhaps spurred on by the flush in my cheeks, he continued, “I choose the one that ends wi’ those scrubs in a pile with the coat.”

“Sorry, that’s not on the menu today.”

He clicked his tongue before pushing his lips into an exaggerated pout. “My lass is all business, then?”  

I could hear the interest cresting in his voice, asking a question within a question. I put the not unwelcome and somewhat graphic image out of mind –– the way his mouth had worked along my hips as he had untied the ridiculous birthday knickers I had purchased _that last time_. Not then, this was _not_ his birthday. _I had a purpose._

“Yes, all business, Fraser.” I took a breath before starting. “Remember that cocktail party we went to a few months back? At Tim McGregor’s house?”

He gave me a look indicating only a glancing familiarity with what I was talking about.

“It is the one where you commented, ‘Aye, McGregor, that’s a braw wee shed ye’ve got there.’ _That_ party.” I turned up the Scots accent to full tilt for the reminder –– the put-on burr that always suspended him between wanting to roll his eyes and swallow my breath.  I wrung my damp hair out and slipped out of my soaked shoes. ****

“Are ye tryin’ to inspire me to remember or is yer aim to offend me?” He quirked one ruddy eyebrow as he said it.

I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him the look I reserved for when my annoyance with him was at a fever pitch.

“The house, Jamie… do you remember _the house_?” The fact that he could not immediately bring it to memory, or that he was just messing with me, did not bode well for my mission.  I must have been giving him one hell of a look because when he spoke again, his tone had changed completely.

“Aye, yes, I ken the place.” Gone was the joking. The shine of joviality had fallen away without preamble.  “What of it?”

“Well, he’s _moving_.  He’s putting the house on the market.”

“That’s a right nasty mortgage payment.” I could not tell whether he was keeping up, reading ahead and knowing where I was going before I even got there, or if he was playing a fool on purpose.

“Yes. He wants to get rid of it; he’s doing it on the cheap.”

Jamie just looked at me, a bemused sort of expression on his face.

“I know what he wants for it. We have the money.”

 _We have the money_. Our accounts had merged just a few weeks earlier. We had always just split the rent and expenses of having a flat together ( _equal checks written together the last weekend of the month_ ).  Now it was all there in one.  Mingled. The fact that we were now so well acquainted with one another’s finances was strangely intimate.

“I mean, we have the down payment. There’d be a note on the house, of course.”

“A house?” He quirked an eyebrow, wiping the lenses of his glasses on his tie. “Wait. Are ye askin’ me to live with ye, Beauchamp?”

 _He was teasing me now_. I would not take the bait. I inhaled. The thought steeled me for the ask: ‘ _Here it goes_.’

“I… I think we should go for it.  McGregor said he wouldn’t list with the broker it if we could send an offer. Tonight.”

The litany of _moments_ that I had composed in my head on the walk over came over me in a roar. They fought to come out of my mouth, but just played in my mind as I studied him.

The “braw wee shed” could become Jamie’s office, a place where he could disappear from a long week at work or during one of my tetchier moods.  A small bar cart in the corner with whisky and etched-glass tumblers. A drawing table with story boards and tacks, paste and colored pens. A comfortable chair where he could read with the doors thrown open in the summer.  A view of the garden, a place to watch me putter about with various verdant _things_. A bench where he could make good on a whispered line of filth from the night we first visited McGregor’s house.

The sunny breakfast nook would be perfect for Sunday morning crosswords that challenged our vocabularies and coffee that brought us to life.  A place where we could lean over a small bistro table to wipe jam and crumbs from each other’s lips.  An alcove where all that mattered was the warmth of the sun, our dog jockeying for the crusts from toast, and our hands _accidentally_ ( _never accidentally_ ) brushing one another as we reached for _whatever_. ****

The gated garden would be a prime spot for our new dog, Buffalo Bill, to chase the kids I had breathlessly agreed to have with Jamie. ( _Though the size of said brood was still under negotiation_.)  The large, ruddy dog digging up a patch of herbs in a raised flower bed. Jamie hosing the dog down and spraying the stickiness of summer from my skin while I screamed and feigned annoyance.  Taking me down into the grass, a finger running over the curve of my cheek and a whispered Gaelic sentiment ( _whatever one he had chosen for the day–– Sorcha, mo nighean donn, mo cridhe_ ).

The attic master bedroom, soaring rafters still smelling creamy with the odor of white paint.  The rug Jamie hated, fluffy under an upholstered bed covered in a dozen textures ( _bedsheets, a duvet, a quilt, a knit blanket, pillows in three different shapes_ ).  Our clothes, mine tangled with his ( _smelling bright and fresh from the wash, warm from the dryer_ ), heaped on a wing-backed velvet chair in the corner.  A quiet coming together on our first night in our new home, candles packed separately for easy retrieval.  They would flicker in the dark of our new room, lit for the purpose of making hands and mouths absolutely _glow_. Undressing each other with the windows facing the back garden wide open ( _cool air that smelled of the edge of the city, mixing seamlessly with touches we meant to create, create, create: an arm rippling with goosebumps, a shiver, a sighed whisper, a permanent reminder of a unblemished day_ ).

The two bedrooms separate from the attic master would be perfect for guests ( _& etcetera_ ) until… _someday, maybe, when…_.  Paint in various nursery-appropriate colors striping the walls with various shapes and letters ( _a heart in pale yellow with a “C” in a pale blue and a “J” in a sea foam green so light it went almost white_ ).

The living room, with its fireplace, a perfect location for us to tangle ourselves together to ward off the chill of a Scotland winter.  A medical journal open on my legs as I read, plucked away by my love’s mischievous, roving fingers.  My faux exasperation as I would say, “ _hey, I was reading that_.” His snort, a muttered profanity, a quiet worship. He would whisper, “ _someday, maybe… today_?” A quiet acceptance, “ _yes, today, now_.” An expansion of our small family – Jamie, Claire, the idiotic dog. The promise of new life with Jamie’s hand curved over my belly. “ _Hopefully. **Yes** , today_.”

The sum total of all those spaces a perfect place for writing a life together. Each day a new chapter, a new promise. A virus of sentimentality that he had used to drive me wild all those months ago when we met, making me want to _write, write, write_.  

A million moments, a thousand more.

“Jamie, I mean…” I was ready to _sell._ “We’ve seen it. We gushed about it for a week after. It’s a beautiful home.”

 _Okay_.

I was about to launch into the first part of my speech.  I stopped. Wait. Had he _said_ that or had I just _imagined_ my desired outcome – pictured it in my mind’s eyes until I could hear it in his voice.

_Wait._

“Okay?” I tested, my voice unsure, my mouth going soft.

His look said it before his mouth did –– a lifetime of _yes_ , a world of possibility he was writing for himself without me having to sell him _anything_. “Okay. Aye.  Let’s buy a house.”

And we did.  


End file.
